That was what I learned from the girl. She didn’t tell me all of it. She told me very little of it in those words. But that is the story I got by combining her words, her manner of telling them, her facial expressions, with what I already knew, and what I could guess.
And not once while she talked had her eyes turned from mine. Not once had she shown that she knew there were other men standing in the road with us. She stared into my face with a desperate fixity, as if she was afraid not to, and her hands held mine as if she might sink through the ground if she let go.
“How about your servants?” I asked.
“There aren’t any there now.”
“Papadopoulos persuaded you to get rid of them?”
“Yes—several days ago.”
“Then Papadopoulos, Flora and Angel Grace are alone in the house now?”
“Yes.”
“They know you ducked?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they do. I had been in my room some time. I don’t think they suspected I’d dare do anything but what they told me.”
It annoyed me to find I was staring into the girl’s eyes as fixedly as she into mine, and that when I wanted to take my gaze away it wasn’t easily done. I jerked my eyes away from her, took my hands away.